


XIII

by Antartique



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Bad Decisions, Demonic Beasts, Gen, Light Angst, Not really romantic, Roleswap, Sylvix Secret Santa (Fire Emblem), Synesthesia, it's mostly one-sided, no closure or real ending, or shippy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:22:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23031640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Antartique/pseuds/Antartique
Summary: Five years after the start of the war, Prince Sylvain José Gautier returns to his people. He doesn't really like it.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 8
Kudos: 31





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sylvix 2019 Secret Santa, but it isn't really Sylvix? It is confusing.

The tales usually go like this: there is a dashing, handsome prince and a beautiful and innocent lady, they meet, and they love, and they live happily ever after. They are tales of loyalty and friendship and chivalry that end up in a wedding, with a Prince who deserves his title and a Lady to be defended.

This is not such tale.

The first one to find him is Felix.

It probably does not make a pretty sight after, what, five years? Almost five years? The sun is starting to rise behind the horizon, casting an eerie light around the clearing that makes shadows look far longer than they should and the dismembered bodies seem more grotesque than they truly are. Or, maybe not, because they truly _are_ kind of terrible to look at, broken as they are, just cracked dolls pretending to be alive. Pretending they were _once_ alive. There is blood on the ground, all around and at his feet, all the way to the tree Felix is holding on to.

He looks so _beautiful_ , it is unfair, because as he is right now Sylvain has no right to touch him or talk to him, or be in his presence. Even dirty, with leaves in his hair and mud covering his legs and his hair a mess like he has been running around all night, he still looks perfect in his own Felix-like way. Even with the wide, partly terrified, partly relieved eyes, his mouth shaped in an ‘o’ and his chest heaving from lack of breath, he still looks like an out of place hallucination in the reality of life.

Sylvain knows of hallucinations. Felix is not one of them.

Sylvain drops his lance —it breaks, because it is a cheap thing he took from one of the bodies when the last one lost its blade. He takes one step, to the side; he does not know if he should approach Felix or just escape. He takes another, narrowing his eyes at Felix reaching with his hand and trying to get closer-

And then the beast in the distance roars as it wakes, and Sylvain almost trips in his haste to pick up his other half and return to his hiding.

He runs.

Felix says something, but Sylvain does not hear. All he hears is the staccato beat of the march of Fraldarius guiding his pace in a rhythm of strings, loud in his ears and echoing in his Crest. It is an overwhelming tune of war and loyalty, a constant as present as time and life and death, always in the background like the beat of a heart.

Sylvain cannot hear much when he is around _Them_ , but Felix has always been the worst in a way. Maybe it is because both of them are attuned to each other more than the others were, or because Felix was always the one who was there after Glenn’s death. Or maybe it is just because Sylvain looks at him and sees part of what keeps him in Fódlan still.

He is a pretty useless person, at that. If it wasn't for Felix, and Miklan, and the one whose voice mourns every night in his dreams, he would probably not be here still. And Felix, Felix is a heavy weight in his arms, an anchor to reality when he has been watching his own life through a lens for so many years.

Then again, that has been Felix’s role for as long as they have known each other.

Another roar comes from a distance away, deafening, yet far enough to not be an issue. There are around four, maybe five if the one in the sky is coming down as well, all loud in their mourning and self-hatred and righteous anger, bearing down on their target that Sylvain has oh so carefully lead them to after a week of playing bait. Come evening, he will have to move again, find a new objective, but maybe this time he can take a day to himself and rest.

He can rest now, because Felix is here. Felix, with the march of Fraldarius at his heels and his voice that tastes of bergamot and colored in the softest creamy peach. Felix, who welcomed him in his room when he was sleepy enough, who yelled at him for being an idiot when he took on his usual job of bait, whose voice was silent while his heart and expressions said it all.

Either way, Felix is _warm_.

He is warm in a way Sylvain has not felt in a long time, the warmth of red blood and humankind and civilization, of beloved people and familiar homes, of the fire crackling in the hearth and the _click click click_ of Mother’s needles. Felix is all hard muscles and lean shapes and smells of snow and trees and fur and sword oil, and he is _here_ and does not vanish when Sylvain looks at him straight in the eye and pulls him to himself.

Felix does not struggle when Sylvain grabs him, does not struggle when he lets the both of them fall to the ground, does not struggle when Sylvain hugs him, and kisses his cheek and his forehead and his neck and his hands, hands desperate in their exploring as only a man with nothing left to lose can be like. Felix is warm, and so very devoted, even when the person he is devoted to has been missing for how many years and refuses to go back, even when he claims to hate him half the time, even when Sylvain himself has never understood why Felix will insult him one minute then turn around to fuss over him the next.

All Felix does is hug him back, keep his hands from wandering too low, and grumble when he won’t let go. He puts his swords down and takes off his gauntlets, nude hands tugging at clothes, seeking for something on Sylvain’s eyes he does not seem to find, the very same thing he has been looking for for almost a decade by now. He ends up laying there, hair messy and lose, ear resting against his chest to listen to a heartbeat he has not heard in maybe half a decade.

Outside of their tiny hiding spot, the sun shines white and bright.

“How did you even find me?” Sylvain asks, even when he knows the answer better than his own age and better than the man falling asleep atop him. He nuzzles his face into Felix’s hair, tightens his arms around him, sighs in relief at the familiarity of it all.

Felix has always been a safe space.

“You are not subtle,” Felix replies in a whisper. His eyes are closed already, probably tired, most likely already falling asleep, and his fist clenches around Sylvain’s collar as if that would keep him from disappearing again. “I just tracked the beasts.”

Sylvain smiles. He rolls to the side, keeping Felix against the cave’s wall, his own back to the entrance, and shuffles around so he can keep him out of sight. Felix breathes softly against his neck, wraps an arm around his waist, and sleeps.

How nice and useful it must be, to be able to sleep on command. Sleep does not come easy when one is on the run: Sylvain expects to have to flee at any time, and it is why his belongings are very few and rarely leave his sight. It is why he waits, arms tight around Felix, eyes closed and ears sharp, for the beasts outside to come out of their blood-induced frenzy, for their voices to go quiet and calmer than before, to finally give in to his dreams.

He sleeps light and dreams of a labyrinth of blue dunes and red arcs, a tiny voice calling him from the depths of it.

He wakes up to the voice ringing in his ears, fingers grasping for a weapon he does not have with him right now, and fingers combing through his hair. For a second he freezes, expecting danger, but as his brain wakes up he can recognize the melody, the Crest, the person, in exactly that order.

Right. Felix.

Felix is awake too, only just barely out of the soft and fluffy state of just waking up and halfways into the sharp steel edge of his usual day hours, and Sylvain looks behind himself at the cave’s entrance to try and guess the time. Sometime around afternoon, probably, so he was asleep maybe three hours. He tries to untangle himself from Felix —that was more than enough human contact for the day, maybe even the month—, but instead he gets a harsh pull at his hair.

“Black doesn’t suit you,” Felix says, voice slow and lazy and tinted in gold. He twirls a stray lock of dyed hair in his finger and tucks it behind Sylvain’s ear, leaving his hand there like he means to do something else.

It is a feathery touch, just fingertips on his cheek, yet still _enough_ to make Sylvain want to both lean into it and slap it away. Skin contact that he does not initiate makes him uncomfortable, has always done so, and as much as he craves it he can’t- he _cannot-_

His old friends —almost family, really— know him well enough to understand and Felix looks at him like he failed to find something once again. Like Sylvain failed such an easy test for the infinite time ever, disappointing and heartbreaking. His hand retreats, and Sylvain has to hold back a relieved sigh and the impulse to reach for it.

“Red is too conspicuous.”

Felix hums in agreement, and Sylvain decides it is time to get up.

This cave isn’t particularly big, just enough for two people to crawl in and sleep without the cold air bothering them too much, but it is safely hidden from plain view, while right outside is a good vantage point to pick up marching troops. Even if he _wasn’t_ baiting Imperial soldiers he would have picked it up, but then again, moving alone means he has to be very careful unless he wants to face a painful death. It is why he carries almost no weapons, why he left his horse behind, and also why his armor is practically non-existent: metal is the worst when trying to move undetected.

Still, it is not ideal. He has no rations, and he doubts Felix has much either. Sylvain has been surviving mostly on adrenaline, snow, what he manages to steal from enemy troops, and whatever he can trick out of any half-drunk he finds in his disguised trips to town. He could hunt, but there is a particular balance needed for the greater Demonic Beasts to move into one area and he does not know how easy it is to break it. He is not patient enough for fishing, and foraging in this snow seems like a hard task.

Any other day, he would accept the lack of supplies and move on to his next target. Any other day, he would wait until the king of the skies roaming around starts circling its prey and join it in its stalking.

Any other day, Felix would not be with him.

With a sigh, he takes out his dagger. He can probably find some or other tree, if nothing else.

He returns victorious with a handful of tasteless and bland stuff Felix will probably hate, because it is _all_ tree, and ends up sitting next to his old friend to roast their boring, flavorless meal. As expected, Felix glares at the low fire, that particular look that is actually a well-disguised pout to anyone who does not know any better, but that Sylvain has known how to read for years now: part angry, part sad, part ‘I want to go home and take a warm bath’.

“Please don’t say this is all you eat.”

Felix is adorable and also surprisingly spoiled, for someone who claims to care only about battle.

“Nah, it has just been slow at work.”

Slow, and also tiring. Now that he has finally figured out the pattern for the anomalous Beasts it is slightly easier, but he still can move only at night, still cannot approach his own home, still sees no end to the constant screaming for freedom coming from the back of his head. Even now, shapes hover at the side of his sight, brown and red and gold, their voices quiet growls of pleas and curses to themselves and their enemies.

Not loud enough just yet. They are safe for now.

They eat slowly, trying to get the most out of their meagre meal. By the time they have packed away their small camp, the sky has already started to darken, and the cold has become unbearable enough both of them have to huddle together under their layers.

 _Warm_ , it is so very _warm_.

For the first time in forever, Sylvain heads away from the Beasts. It _has_ been five years, after all, and as much as he is not looking forward to being reunited with anyone who still remembers him, he has to.

For his country. For the Kingdom that still calls him its Prince. Funny, that even after all he has done to get rid of said title, people still seem to believe him to be worthy of the throne.

Now, he needs to catch up. News of the court don’t reach so far, after all.

“Well,” Felix starts, wary even when he does trust Sylvain to guide them in the right direction. That is what Sylvain does, even if that job was taken over by their unusually sleepy Professor through their school months.

The summary is delivered in the usual cutting remarks of Glenn Fraldarius with a drop of Felix; the news are not dire, but not good either, but it is somehow calming to have an inside perspective of what he has only seen from the distance. The South and West are still traitors, and call themselves the Dukedom, claiming legitimacy since they have Miklan at the head- _‘He has been oddly subdued; we all thought he would flee the moment he signed that thing, but he’s still there?_ ’

They have been amassing royal troops at Fraldarius and Blaiddyd, but it has been a harsh few years. The Northern Winter is at its worst cycle of the decade, lasting for over half the year before it gives away to a rainy spring and dry autumn. Somehow, Faerghus always managed to get themselves into trouble when the ocean currents were going the wrong side: some sort of self-fulfilled prophecy from the most superstitious people, who would refuse to work without warm sun and then complain there are not enough supplies. And the North, especially Blaiddyd, cannot really support that many people on its own, and to manage with the lack of working hands in the fields they had to move in smaller numbers than expected, to gather supplies, defend the borders and intel gathering.

The positive of winter is that Miklan, or whoever is pulling the strings behind him, would also have to deal with the same problem. The Northern Winter is a kingdom-wide problem and, as much as they are calling themselves the _Dukedom_ , Faerghus is still very much Faerghus. There is a reason why unification had been important, and why the clan divisions were still in place even after so many years.

The surprise comes from Sreng, and when Felix mentions it Sylvain feels some vague warmth of gratefulness to his grandparents’ side of the family. The Western clans of Sreng, that is, those who had been constantly poking at the border for centuries by now, had offered their support (‘for some or other reason’), but the tentative peace is currently on hold. Lord Lambert had apparently ‘lost his head and put the Boar in charge of that mess’, so no one is quite sure how it will turn out with time. Dimitri —said Boar, a nickname born from Blaiddyd bullheadedness and Dimitri’s own amusement— hadn’t done much about the matter, and so that means it will end up in Sylvain’s hands once this war is over, if they even survive.

The explanation is short and simple, just like Felix, but Sylvain dares not interrupt— his other half is quiet, yet close enough that he can feel the words against his skin and taste them on his tongue. It is the first time in many years he has had the chance to truly enjoy the voice of a real person so physically near, the chance to feel someone else weave in his senses without making him need to shut down.

This is Felix, _Felix_ , who is safe and alive and not constantly muttering about how hungry or tired they are. Felix who has always been there, closer at times and more distant at others, and Sylvain _aches_.

He squeezes his hand in thanks before letting go, getting out from under the cape they had been wearing so he can climb up a dead tree. The Guiding Star leads him North, but he needs more reference points if he wants to lead them safely to Garreg Mach, after all.

The tiny voice hiding in its desertic labyrinth calls out to him once more. He wonders if Miklan is safe, if he hates Sylvain for leaving him behind with a throne neither of them ever wanted. He wonders if they can wait another few months alone, and if they are taking care of each other.

Down South, another voice screams in mourning right before it goes mute. The world tilts in its balance, eerily quiet as it waits, and another shape in the side of Sylvain’s sight clings to its companions before its torn apart and away from reality by an existence larger than its own.

The silence rings in his ears, messy white to his eyes and blood and ash in his mouth, and it takes until the sun is rising once more for noise to return to the world as a new Demonic Beast is born to the world.

“Black doesn’t suit you,” is the first thing Byleth tells him when they meet up with them, climbing up the stairs of the Monastery looking like they just got fished out of a sea monster’s belly. They are a mess, dirty and bloody, looking not a day older than the last time Sylvain saw them five whole years ago; apparently, they _are_ not a day older than five years ago, as they had been kept frozen in time by the Goddess herself after they fell into the chasm.

Byleth truly is loved by the Goddess.

“Nice to see you too, Professor,” he replies, because there is not much else he can do: he was never one to interact much with the Professor, or with anyone who was not easy going about his casual flirting —his usual circle involved people like Dimitri, Mercedes and Claude, who didn’t ask many questions, unlike the Professor who insisted on wanting to know his feelings about whatever was happening throughout the month.

Felix, next to the Professor, gives him a _look_ , the very same look Ingrid used on him whenever he said something out of place, or that look Dedue threw at him when he had spent more than three days in a row wandering the streets at night. It is those same eyes that Sylvain has come to see as _warningdangerunrunrun_ , because they often mean he will be knocked out and put in time out until the others think he can deal with reality.

Reality is a lie, Sylvain is tired, and Byleth is the same kind of person he is: disconnected enough they just won’t care. They never did get along for the same reason, even if one part of Sylvain (the part of him that sounds suspiciously like Dimitri) needs Byleth around. “The last years have treated you well.”

“Five, I was told. Sure was a long nap.” Byleth nods, and then leans all their weight on Felix so they can walk easier.

The two of them had found them almost near their final destination, the Monastery itself, when Sylvain had heard the quiet melancholic tune of their Crest beating nearby and changed their course. His own heart _hurt_ at the taste of mint in their voice, at the soft colors of their being layering around his own like a blanket, at the silent reminder that he is not whole just yet. The threads of green reached out to him, and he followed, because Byleth’s Relic has always been a comforting presence in their hand and in his sight, echoing the presence of the Lance of Ruin in his hands whenever he was allowed to wield it.

He aches, and somewhere North, far in the distance, a lonely ageless being wails out for its Mother.

Clingy, needy Crest.

Five whole years it has been since he last saw their Professor, four since he last met with his family. Now, following a promise made in the ease of peace, they are to reunite once more in the halls of Garreg Mach, a mirror of an event almost forgotten by now.

From the distance, Garreg Mach looked the same as it always had. Imposing walls, looming towers and the cathedral’s arches acting as a guiding post for the weary traveler; however, now that they are inside the Monastery proper, the destruction and desolation is clearer than the night sky through the summer of Sreng. The walls are cracked, the towers fallen, and the Cathedral itself feels like a pile of rubble even with all four of its walls standing.

It is an awful sight, yet also very welcome. It feels like coming home, much like Felix’s room or Fhirdiad or the catacombs under the land.

Still, he is not hopeful. He dares not hope for his friends and classmates to be here, especially after everything they have gone through. Not after so long of not meeting anyone familiar, of carelessly throwing himself at whoever was incoherent enough to not recognize him, of ignoring most rumors and updates from his frozen kingdom. He dares not hope they will accept him back in their midst, not after everything he has done that goes against the chivalric code of his own people.

A smaller part of him, the hopeful part, is not surprised when, upon reaching the Cathedral, they find all of them waiting as if expecting a tearful and heartfelt meeting.

Hymns of rhythmic arias layer over fast marches of drums and symphonies of flutes, the cacophony of the gathered Crests silencing even the loudest mourning cries in the back of his head. Voices mingle, loud and excited, Flayn’s freshwater and Seteth’s earthy spices, Mercedes’ sweet caramel and Annette’s cotton candy, even Ashe’s own blend of apples and cinnamon, rushing to the Professor and Felix as soon as they see them.

It is overwhelming yet familiar, the music and taste of their classroom before the world cracked and fell under their feet, the colors dancing around each other without becoming the hazy monochromes of battlefields and war. No deaths, no losses, only old friends greeting each other as if they were meeting for casual teatime.

Sylvain shakes his head. It is too much for now, so he heads over to Dimitri, stopping by another shady corner to pull Dedue out of wherever he is hiding. His one and only retainer follows, as he always does, as he promised to do, but he stands by Dimitri’s side instead of Sylvain’s, for as long as their discussion goes on.

As it should be.

With Margrave Blaiddyd stuck in the North, trying to keep his few troops well and alive for whenever they get called to Fhirdiad, and Duke Fraldarius moving his own numbers like he is playing a terrible game of chess, there is not much else they can do. They must wait for the right moment to reclaim the capital, moment that might take a few months to arrive, considering how bad the situation is.

Instead of plotting for war, Garreg Mach focuses on reconstruction. Seteth kidnaps Byleth for planning, and Dimitri follows them because he would not be Dimitri had he not been glued to the Professor’s side at all hours of the day. Ingrid tags along as well, as does Mercedes, and then everyone else ends up getting pulled into their plans.

Everyone else, except Sylvain.

He doesn’t care much for the strategy meetings everyone attends: Garreg Mach is not part of his domain, so he has no voice to speak within such matters. The few meetings they have on war effort are held with very few people, and _those_ are the ones he joins, though he does not comment much on them either. He has been moving alone for so long, the idea of joining the main force feels misplaced, to him, as if he was intruding on something he had no right to be in.

He ends up locking himself up in the old chess club room, dozens of discarded letter drafts littering around him, the voices of the Beasts his only constant company each day. At times Dimitri will join him, other times it will be Ingrid. For exactly one hour every week, Marianne will also sit by his side, a companionable and silent presence helping him keep the voices quiet.

At times, he will end up replaying old games to himself. Games with Hubert, games with Claude, games that Sylvain rarely won as he was constantly distracted even back in their school days. It had been his one entertainment through those months, as Ingrid had always been watching him and making sure he kept decorum, Ingrid or Felix or even Dimitri whenever his House Leader duties did not get in the way. The good old days when he still had his friends at his side and they didn’t feel awkward around him.

It has been five years, though, and Sylvain doubts he can talk easily to any of them anymore. Five years for his classmates, and another two for his old friends, and maybe a whole lifetime to himself.

Nowadays, it is just weird, especially with Felix. Ingrid gave up, Dimitri doesn’t care much about all of it, but _Felix_ seems to believe there is still a chance for Sylvain to be a decent human being.

Of all the people, he has to deal with the one made of glass.

Sylvain looks up at Felix. Felix looks down at Sylvain. Without even looking, Sylvain slides a Bishop to check the opposite King, and then sweeps his arm across the board to get rid of the game.

“Sylvain.” His name rolls off Felix’s tongue with even more disdain than Dimitri’s ‘Boar’, but not as much as Lord Rodrigue’s name whenever it is mentioned. It is small comfort to know that even after everything that has happened, Felix still sees him as worthy of a name instead of an insult, no matter how much he deserves it.

(His nickname had once been _Beast_ , said right before his title and epithet, but after his name. ‘Sylvain, His Beastly Highness, Warden of Ruin’, a name he had grown used to and even come to like. It is not said as often nowadays, as Ingrid rarely calls him by name anymore, and Felix…

Felix once admitted that he thought _Beast_ was not strong enough for him.)

“Felix, sweetheart,” he says, letting his true self out for one single word. One of the figures snaps at him, rough growls and cold words and very much Glenn, hovering in the side of his sight as he always does, and Sylvain finds it hard to not look at the mangled man with the body of a human and the head of a wolf. “Sit with me?”

Felix hesitates for a few seconds, but then sits on what used to be Hubert’s chair. Sylvain starts putting the chess pieces back in place as he waits for whatever is it Felix wants to tell him. You cannot force Felix to speak, or he will hide behind his walls and vanish from sight for a few hours, much like his father of even Glenn used to do back then.

“The Boar said we should start making our way to Fhirdiad next week, and meet up with the others on the road,” Felix begins. It is an update of their earliest meeting, the continuation of one Sylvain had been in attendance to, regarding what their next move should be: Fhirdiad, or Enbarr, or support the Alliance in the conflict of Myrddin. Thoughts have been divided, though Sylvain’s own idea is to head to the Capital, no matter how ridiculously defended it is. “We should meet up with the old man in Galatea, and then with Margrave Blaiddyd closer to the city proper.”

“We are going around through the Alliance then?” That course of action means Sylvain has to get this letter done with soon, but he is pretty worthless at diplomatic missives, and the one person who always helped him is not available right now. He really needs to retrieve his family. “Are we offering our support to them then? Is it the Knights of Seiros, or Faerghus, because I need to know so I can write-“

“You are not coming.”

Those words make everything freeze. The voices, the melodies, the dancing colors in his eyes. The bitter taste of bergamot in his mouth suddenly becomes ash, dusty and flavorless and familiar in a way he does not particularly enjoy. The world, turning brown and dull and monochrome, sight of battles and wars in his eyes, bloodied bodies at his feet and covering him whole, a swarm of corpses ripped apart by inhumane arms—

He looks at Felix, and Felix looks back with eyes of steel.

“What?”

“We received reports that the Hound is patrolling Fhirdiad again.” (Glenn, quiet no more, growls and screams at Felix to _free him_.) “Considering your track record whenever the Beasts of Fhirdiad are involved, it was a unanimous decision.”

Something inside Sylvain, the half that is still human enough to care about loss, and life, and death, and completing the duty that has long since been given to his family, snaps.

He comes back to himself two hours later, Marianne next to him with a staff in her hands, and the old chess club room ruined with the telltale signs of a combat art that should not be usable without a Relic. In the back of his head, the Lance of Ruin tugs and pulls and tells him to _come home_.

He looks down at Claude’s favorite chess set, at the only piece still whole, and wonders if this is what being the King of the game feels like at all times.

Felix and Ingrid are gone, they tell him after a few nights of house arrest, a few dozen soldiers at their heels as they hurry to Galatea. Dimitri and Dedue leave the next day, needing to sneak past Imperial lines to regroup with the other half of royalist troops. Dealing with Alliance ends up in the hands of Annette and Lysithea, the two of them disappearing with Cyril within the week.

Sylvain guards Garreg Mach.

He feels like a useless soldier without any weapons, just waiting for news from everywhere else to get to him. He listens, and he watches, and he focuses his sight up North through the nights he cannot sleep. At times, Byleth will let him go stretch his legs, but he is heavily watched at all times whenever he gets within range of anything with aggressive intentions.

“You are Faerghus’s hope,” they say one day over tea. It is chamomile, tastes of yellow and Dimitri’s voice, and is bland enough it is almost like drinking water. “We cannot have you acting as bait for the enemy, or throwing yourself into danger like your life weighs nothing.”

Except that is what Sylvain is best at, what he has been doing for years now. He lures, and then he gets something else to kill his enemies for him, or just keeps throwing himself against a brick wall until it breaks. Yes, at times he jumped in front of blows meant for other people, but that does not mean he has to be watched all hours of the day.

It is especially annoying because he _needs_ to be on the move. He listens, and he watches, and he sees the Beasts hovering in the side of his sight, slightly more quiet than usual yet still moving at all times around the Monastery. He sees Glenn, pacing the length of his patrolling area with clawed hands. He sees his fake mother, crawling up the walls with his father’s head in her hands, dragging the stalactite piercing her body around with a sound that feels like needles under nails.

Sylvain lost four people in Duscur, but only one of those is truly lost. He cannot say he regrets it, though.

He does regret being stuck indoors.

He also really hates not having anything to do. There are only so many ways he can sneak past Mercedes or Marianne or Flayn before they notice a pattern, and he does not have enough skirts or dresses that they haven't already seen to disguise himself other times. He tries to string people along to destress, since his usual watchers are not around, but by this point everyone in town knows about his terrible habit and won’t follow.

Sylvain hates his role, and his Crest, and his title, and his duties and obligations and everything that is related to him being anything more than Just Sylvain.

They regroup with Duke Fraldarius. They regroup with Margrave Blaiddyd. Both men look at Sylvain like he is somehow breaking all rules of nobility and royalty by not joining the front lines, but he does not want to tell them he is staying here because Felix, Dimitri and the rest of his class ganged up on him to keep him inside. They also don’t linger around for much, Lambert leaving within a few days after embarrassing his son and Dedue, while Rodrigue gets in a fight with Felix over who knows what and goes back to lead the defensive lines.

They leave the army. At least, that is good enough. They leave the Relics too, and Sylvain tries to ignore the threads of gold and black wrapping around the Sword of the Creator’s own green.

Sylvain is allowed to fight in Gronder, if only because _everyone_ goes fight at Gronder. He spends all of the battle freeing Beasts, because Imperial Beasts are _conscious_ , more than any other Beast ever is, and their _everything_ gets to him in such a way that he just wants to give in. They scream, and plead, and beg for freedom Sylvain is not strong enough to grant them on his own, but he can do so with the aid of his old classmates and a really heavy hammer.

Their _voices_ and the twisted, mangled carcasses lingering in the side of his sight keep him awake at night, yet it is better than the _silence_ of any human being reborn as one.

He takes comfort in the fact that the Beasts of Fhirdiad are not, in any way, as messed up as the ones the Empire uses for their attacks.

Maybe he is lying to himself.

“Is Glenn alive?”

Felix’s question comes out of nowhere after one of the strategy meetings, after they have decided when they are going to attempt and infiltrate Fhirdiad, after he has chased Sylvain all the way up to the tallest tower in the Monastery’s walls. He had just returned from keeping watch on the Capital, eyes dull and puffy red, but now he looks like the usual stone statue he pretends to be when he needs to talk about feelings.

Without a word, Sylvain brings him close, wraps his arms around him and nuzzles his neck. It is comfortable, and familiar, and if he had any more trust in his own control he would stay like this forever. It can be overwhelming, but without anyone else around it is just hypnotizing, swirls and spikes of cream-colored bergamot and the easy beat of a Crest in his ears.

Felix doesn’t like it, though. Felix doesn’t like many things about Sylvain, not when he is fully conscious: when he is half asleep, it is okay, because half-asleep Felix does not bother hiding what his heart says and feels. He should not bother hiding it any other time, but this is Felix, who had taken to Gautier philosophy of ‘never letting your true self show’ like he was part of the family.

Sylvain is shoved back, hands keeping his head away from Felix. Since his arms stay in place, he squeezes tighter and lets himself fall back on the tiles, and Felix settles on top of him. Pins him down and sits up on Sylvain’s stomach, warm and all hard muscle and bone.

“Is Glenn alive?” The question is repeated once more, but it lacks the edge and danger of before, just three words stringed together without anything holding them up. Felix believes himself to be a sword, but if anything right now he is maybe the sheath, or a wrapping cloth: vulnerable, easily pulled apart, breaking under the strain of something far heavier and more dangerous than he has ever exposed himself to.

Sylvain has to be careful, because one word from him would make Felix collapse. He looks to the side, where Glenn’s claw is digging into the roof. Even if he was alive, could the being currently hiding underneath Fhirdiad really be called Glenn?

Still, Felix is asking, and the weak dig of a blade by Sylvain’s leg is very obvious, very threatening, and also very loving. It just rests there along with Felix’s gaze on his face, possibly trying to see past changes in his expression, possibly just trying to stare him down, _hopefully_ just admiring.

(Sylvain does not hope anymore, but at times he still wants _more_ , wants what they used to have and what could have been, wants to be Just Sylvain to Felix once again.)

Sylvain smiles, and Felix’s eyes narrow.

“He is not.” He can’t call this Beast Glenn, just as he could not call that puppet in his mother’s skin ‘Mother’ anymore; they were humans with names once, maybe they could have had names after they lost their humanity, but Sylvain refuses to accept that.

“Liar.”

Sylvain just shrugs, because in the end he has been a liar all his life. Felix is not saying anything new, nor is he insulting Sylvain at all. A liar is what he is, just as his whole family used to be, and he is perfectly alright with this.

He will not deny something that has been truth for so long, not like Felix has tried to do for so many years.

They remain like that for a while, Felix buried in his own thoughts, Sylvain looking up at him through heavy eyes. His hands rest on his other half’s thighs, just laying there instead of trying to keep the other in place, enjoying the contact he has denied himself since their reunion, while Felix smooths Sylvain’s clothes in an unconscious movement left behind from years long past.

Nothing more happens.

Nothing more will ever happen.

The tales usually go like this: there is a loving couple in the midst of war, supporting each other through each fight, battling for their ideals and beliefs. They are tales of devotion and love and trust that end up in victory, with a King on the throne leading his people and a Queen at his side, inspiring them on.

They are tales with an ending and closure.

This is not such tale.


	2. Early Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scenes of childhood, of home, of legends and of school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning** : usual Sylvain stuff, some mild gore, some vague words of dying.
> 
> I'm doing spring cleaning in my files when it isn't spring yet, so here are some unedited scenes from the Academy phase of XIII. Originally, XIII was meant to go back and forth between the past and the present timelines, weaving them together so you wouldn't _know_ certain things were happening in the background before they happened; unfortunately, I never finished the Academy phase, and it got scrapped, along with all the worldbuilding I had written in it.

The tales usually go like this: there is a dashing, handsome prince and a beautiful and innocent girl, they meet, and they live happily ever after.

This is not such tale.

Maybe, had it been anyone else, it would have been, but with its current protagonists it simply does not work out. Maybe, Dimitri would work, because he _is_ dashing and handsome, and he is as princely as he can be when not in battle. Maybe, Ingrid would work, because she _is_ dashing, and handsome —or beautiful, whichever choice she prefers, and she is also princely when she is not before a buffet table. Maybe, Felix would work, because he _is_ dashing and handsome, but he is not princely, too much of a follower and not enough of a leader for him to become King.

As for the girl of the tale… Felix is beautiful, yes, but he is not innocent nor a girl, and while they met really young, they will not live happily ever after. Ingrid could work, even Dimitri if pushed, one could even put Byleth in the role depending on who the prince is, but with the prince of the tale being who he is, none of them could ever be the girl to live her dreams and become the Queen of the Kingdom.

Anyone else could do it.

Not Sylvain.

It just so happens that the prince of this tale is Sylvain José Gautier, a man who hates himself, born to a family never meant to rule and to a Kingdom not really their own. He might be dashing at times, if he really tries. He can be handsome, or beautiful, even pretty, depending on who is in charge of his attire for the day. But princely? No, that is something he left behind long, long ago, inside the walls of a castle and past a rusted gate with the carved number XIII and the Crest of Gautier painted in blood-red above it.

There is a legend, actually. More of history, if Sylvain can be honest, though they are _not_ supposed to be honest—the Church changed history, after all. When the battle against Nemesis ended and the Empire had to give the lands of Faerghus to _some_ family to act as a unifying force, the Chiefs of the Old North fought over who would _not_ be it. Fraldarius dutifully stepped down, as they could never rule over their own troops, much less a whole region. Galatea and Dominic and Charon threw dice over the border, while Blaiddyd grumbled at being forced at the head once more.

Gautier hid in the shadows, hugging his Lance, until Blaiddyd remembered his existence and brought him out for a fight. As was expected, Blaiddyd won, and he cheerfully announced to his friends and the world that he would take the north.

“But we want to go home,” Gautier and his Lance, the visitors from the dry and frozen northeast, complained, even as a whole city was built on circles and arcs, even as thousands of years came to pass, even as a crown of heavy steel was made for his descendants’ heads. “But this is not ours,” he said, time and time again, yet Blaiddyd laughed and laughed from his post in the mountains.

Time and time and time again. When Loog’s plan came true, he denied the throne, following his ancestors’ path back to the border. The tactician from the shadows, never meant to rule anything else than books and his own life, became king, losing his freedom and sight to the whims of a cruel man.

And that is how Gautier, a family not meant to rule and not meant to lead, was placed on the throne.

Sylvain hates it, has hated it all his life. Not just because of some ancient blood still left behind from many, many wives brought from another land; not just because of many tales read hidden from his caretakers’ sight or heard on his mother’s lap. Not even because of how limiting it is to be prince of a nation that prides chivalry when his family’s history is made of tricks and lies; or even because he grew up watching his parents slowly waste away from too many words and too little time.

No, it is none of those. His hatred is aimed elsewhere.

His hatred is, and will always be, aimed at his Crest.

* * *

Sylvain loses four people in Duscur. He can’t say he truly regrets any of them.

His family has never been one to bemoan death. Death _was_. Death _is_. Death _will be_. It is a constant of the wheel of life, of the cycle of time, of which they are all part of. Why fear or regret something that will happen sooner or later, something that should be celebrated, a change of ideals and rebirth of the mind? Why fear that which is so natural to human beings?

Fódlan never understood this. _Faerghus_ never understood this. They seemed to be constantly hanging on the precipice of change, unable to take the next step, clinging to the past while crafting the future. As Gautier, they could not understand this. As Gautier, their only motive was to change this.

As rulers of a nation, they were the will of the people. And the people looked back.

Sylvain is _expected_ to regret his losses. He respects them, yes, but he cannot look back, cannot look his Father, and Aunt, and Glenn in the eye and tell them: I will move forwards for you. That is not him. He is expected to _revere_ the losses, and he cannot do that.

His parents, he misses them. That, he can admit to himself. As terrible people as they had been behind their façades, he misses comfortable family dinners, misses the silent hours spent next to the fire reading; he misses the feeling of his Father with his many documents, leaning in his Mother’s shoulder as she worked on some embroidery, with Miklan petting the dogs while Sylvain napped on the couch. He _misses_ them, but he does not regret them.

Father, he lost in Duscur, beheaded in front of his very eyes. Mother, he lost three years before that, replaced with a vile witch with too many words and too little warmth. The _mother_ he lost in Duscur had been pierced by ice, eyes wide in shock and empty words in her empty lips, body twisted into an inhumane shape with an inhumane soul.

(His real Mother had been kind, and fierce, and smiled behind a sword the size of Miklan. She had been the quiet shade behind her husband, lingering touches on Sylvain’s shoulder, soft words and ancient tales. She had been a teacher, and a mother, and a wife, and a Queen, and then she died and was replaced by a shell with maybe half her rights.

Gone were the laughs when she put Sylvain in embroidered dresses. Gone were the smiles when she saw Miklan cast a spell right. Gone were the mealtimes when she would snatch the best desserts for her own. Gone, gone, she was _gone_.)

His Aunt, and Glenn, he did not _see_ die. He found out about their fate later, once he had been found by Duke Fraldarius, hiding under a pile of corpses and holding the Lance; he had heard them, growls and howls breaking through the silence as they cut down everything in their path, and then when they went quiet only one of them spoke once again. He regrets them, if only because they had families left behind, families who loved them more than Gautier did his lies.

Felix had cried, his Father’s hand on his shoulder as he tried to soften his words; Dimitri had cried, Margrave Blaiddyd standing like a stone next to his heir like he did not quite know what to do; Ingrid had cried, two rings held tight in her fist and a journal of knightly tales hidden under her coat. The casket had been empty, sealed, a corpse never found for a proper ritual, yet—

(There was no corpse, no body left behind, because Glenn did not die. He did not die, stuck in a state there was no coming back from, screaming about injustice and revenge in the back of Sylvain’s head and in the depths of the tunnels under Fhirdiad.)

At his Aunt’s funeral, there were only four people. Sylvain and Miklan, their cousin and her father. His Uncle did not cry for his wife at all, all his revenge aimed at his new duties as Regent-

And at the one who saw it all.

Sylvain loses four people in Duscur, as his fake mother was but an empty corpse they never found. His Father. His Aunt. Glenn.

Finally, Sylvain himself, as his Gautier mind made of tricks and lies hurried to protect itself, dulled emotions becoming sharp like deadly claws, the few he had left by that time hiding behind an even uglier mask of black steel and bleached bone.

Sylvain is the youngest brother, yet the one with the Crest, and it has long since been decided that when the time comes the Crown will end on his head. As Crown Prince, he had responsibilities and expectations placed on him that were very different from those placed on Miklan, and he had spent a long life doing his best to be as _respectable_ as he can be.

Of course, that does not mean he is the pleasant Prince some people expect him to be. He built his very own persona, charming and disarming as only he could be, to hide the unforgiving and treacherous viciousness that is his true self, and while some people had fallen for his trap as easily as they fell for his smiles, some others had managed to see through it.

His family. His childhood friends. Dedue.

Dedue was perhaps the most unexpected, actually. They had picked him up in the clean up after the Tragedy, trying and almost failing to defend himself against royal soldiers, surrounded by the fallen bodies of his family. Sylvain hadn’t _saved_ him, not really, but the idea of witnessing more pointless death didn’t sit right with him, and he was already there so why not use his mostly useless rank for something that once?

He hadn’t expected to gain a retainer. In fact, he hadn’t expected anything from Dedue at all besides hatred and maybe a promise of revenge. That would have been fine with him, but instead, he got words he could not turn away and gained a shadow that followed after him and his very need.

Dedue cannot give him what he needs, though. He had asked, many times, if there was anything he could do for Sylvain, but… What Sylvain needs, what Sylvain _wants_ , isn’t something that can be freely given. Oh, he knows that, were he to ask, Dedue probably would do it: he could make him forget reality and see stars, repeatedly make his mind fade away into a state he can just give himself up, but-

That would not be fair.

Dedue is not meant for him. Pulling him in would be cruel, punishment for something he never did and would never do, and Sylvain does not want to trap any more of his friends in his never-ending game with fate.

Many times, Sylvain had walked ahead, too far to places where others could not follow, and Dedue stayed back. He stayed back, with Dimitri, where he _should_ be, where he would be had this world been set right, while Sylvain got lost in the labyrinth of his own mind. He walks ahead, and the others try to follow, and it is up to Dedue and Dimitri to stop them from going in too deep. _That_ is how this world works, and _that_ is how it is meant to be.

(One of the responsibilities of Sylvain’s role has to do with that, actually: going too deep into his own mind. His father had been tasked with it before his death and had been coaching Sylvain in how to deal with the restless mass of _nothingness_ waiting down there. However, his lessons were cut short by Duscur, leaving him with half-built understanding, a wrongly crafted contract, and next to no defenses of his own will.)

He does _try_ to make his darker urges, _himself_ relax. He is the Prince, so it isn’t like he can let go of his own public image that easily, but people seem to understand. He will play his game and flirt with everyone, from maids to fellow nobles, and they will play along in a way it always ends with both parties earning no points. They all know it is just empty words, that the Prince might be bold but he will never let things too far, that he will end things before anything grows too serious; the few times they _do_ get serious, he makes sure it is with discreet people, if only so he can keep his persona up and no one gets their reputation ruined from affairs behind closed doors and closed lips.

And, well, the few that do not get that memo and try to ignore his warnings? The very few that have tried to take more than what he is willing and allowed to offer, the ones who have let their words run too far or to people who do not deserve to hear… Those people are the ones that end up in Miklan’s _loving_ care and are never seen again.

* * *

When they get to Garreg Mach, the very first thing Sylvain did after saying his farewells to Miklan, was drag his friends into Ingrid’s room and throw the Blue Lions House Leader’s cape over her shoulders. It looked better on her, with her golden hair and beautiful figure, but she made a frustrated noise and threw it on Felix. Felix himself didn’t make a sound, just bundled the thing up and placed it on Dimitri’s shoulders, where it would remain until the end of the year.

“Better,” Sylvain said, fixing the pin before brushing nonexistent dust off the cape. His friends echoed his words, nodding to themselves. Dedue made an appreciative sound. Dimitri smiled, resigned to his fate. No one said the Prince of the realm _had_ to be the leader, after all, and the cape clashed horribly with Sylvain’s whole self.

Their class was made up of eight students: the five of them, a Dominic, and two others Sylvain didn’t recognize. Dimitri, who was dashing, and handsome, and princely, introduced them all by their full names and titles, including Dedue as the Crown Prince’s retainer. When he got to Sylvain, he hesitated for maybe half a second before giving up:

“This is Sylvain.”

“Just Sylvain?” The girl who asked was pretty, with long ashy hair and a figure to die for. She looked at Sylvain through narrowed eyes, almost as if weighing his whole self on invisible scales, and whatever she was looking for she seemed to find. Her eyes brightened, her smile widened, and the prince knew they would be great friends —they were similar, deep inside, he could _feel_ it. “Pleasure to meet you, ‘just Sylvain’. My name is Mercedes.”

( _family_ , the Crest says, hymn soft slate lime near the back of his tongue)

The Dominic girl was not as subtle. She looked at him, at his posture, at his hair, at Dedue subtly stepping away from him, and found _him_. Not him, as just Sylvain; _him_ , as Sylvain José Gautier, Crown Prince of Faerghus, the Warden of Ruin himself.

“Your Highness!” She curtsied, trying for elegance but getting only adorableness when she tripped on air. Felix caught her, a second-long embrace that made him go all red and put her back on her feet before stepping back next to Dimitri. “I am Annette Fantine Dominic, I apologize for my rudeness.”

( _family_ , the Crest claims once more, vivace bright green sugar right inside his lips)

Their final classmate was a small boy that tried to hide behind Dedue whenever Ingrid or Felix looked at him for too long. Sylvain tried not to look, because if he was intimidated by _Dimitri_ in his role as House Leader, then Sylvain would probably send him on a full-blown panic. His voice was so quiet they struggled to hear him:

“A- Ashe Ubert. My Lords, My Lady-,” he shuffled behind Dedue once more, and Sylvain really wondered about that. “Hm. Uh. Your Highness-“

“Sylvain is fine,” he repeated, for both Annette and Ashe, and for Dedue as well. “I’m your classmate here, not even your House Leader, so, just Sylvain. _Please_.”

Overall their meeting with their classmates did not go as expected, but it was okay.

When they finally got to the assembly, Sylvain felt the Archbishop’s aide’s eyes on him the whole time. When the House Leaders introduced themselves, the Princess looked between him and Dimitri like she had swallowed a lemon, while Riegan went wide-eyed and yelled.

“We could _do_ that?”

Dimitri just smiled. He had probably been resigned to something like this happening since his birth, and so had not been surprised when it did. He is a Blaiddyd, they should be used to being the Gautier’s scapegoat after a thousand and something years.

Of course, making the change official involved a whole load of paperwork that Sylvain had to fill in under Seteth’s watchful eyes, while Dimitri and Riegan and the Princess went out with some Knights and their future Professors. It was the same as always: I, Sylvain José Gautier, formally resign as House Leader for the Blue Lion Class of Garreg Mach Academy, Year 1180, blah blah blah Dimitri blah blah blah his signature. It also had to be signed by Dimitri, the Archbishop herself, and their Professor, so they had to wait.

Wait they did. Mercedes brought cake, and Ingrid brought too much food, and Dedue stopped Ashe from leaving until they all knew at least one thing about each other. Ashe liked reading, Ingrid liked knights, they were made for each other.

When Dimitri returned, they learned of the bandit attack. What a coincidence. One of the three professors had also vanished. What a _coincidence._

They get the novice Professor, Byleth Eisner. Two signatures, a long round of introductions and a spar later, the Blue Lions of Year 1180 became what they would be known as for the rest of the school year: that one class lead by the workaholic duo.

Joy.

* * *

Their first months at the Academy were pretty boring. They were mostly spent in classes, sparring, and random short missions to get rid of bandits as if they were mercenaries. At the end of each month, each class had an assignment to complete for the Archbishop, and it was just as ridiculous as it sounds.

The first week, though, was the mock battle. It was just an exercise to test their skills at the start of the year, while also being an excuse to test the new professor in their case. With Byleth’s guidance they managed to win with no greater injuries.

They had had Dimitri at the lead, Mercedes on healing duty, Ashe on the bow and Sylvain himself acting as bait. Well, he was a _decoy_ , but they all knew what that really meant, so he had thrown himself at the Deers and had to tolerate Riegan bothering him about giving up his Leader position, _and_ Gloucester bothering him about not being princely enough, it sure was annoying.

Byleth was a good tactician. They had a quick mind, fast reflexes and favored their fists over any other weapon. They had teamed up with Dimitri for that battle, his voice farther reaching than their own soft sleepy one-

( _mother,mother,mother,_ the Crest calls like the desperate cry of a child, nocturne and pale green and tastes of mint and _iron and ash and earth itself-_ )

-commands delivered through children's games' codes and simple words. As it had been in the past, as it had always been, Sylvain lured their targets to place and they got easily taken out one by one.

It has been the same for years now, will continue being for many years to come. Dimitri always leads and breaks formations and protects as he is meant to do. Ingrid sweeps in from above to provide support, taking back allies who are too injured to continue. Felix strikes quick and quicker, leaps in and out of the fray like deadly lightning on their enemies. And Sylvain…

Sylvain’s duty had now been taken over by Byleth.

Professor Hanneman went down, and then they had to deal with the Eagles. That took a little more time, if only because between the commoner girl, Vestra and Professor Manuela they kept raining magic on them. Mercedes and Byleth had to move into the front, while Sylvain himself and Ashe got tasked with taking out Aegir. Aegir, who _also_ teased Sylvain about his Leader position, he really wanted to shut him up, why can’t they just leave it alone?

In the end, they won, and celebrated. Ingrid ate a lot, as did Professor Byleth and Ashe, and then the day was over.

The month after, they had to deal with the bandits that had attacked the House Leaders on that field trip, Zostas or something? They had gone-

( _home_ )

-to some canyon, and then killed the bandits, and everyone got their first kills done cleanly. Some cried, others were thoughtful. Sylvain took a deep breath and shoved his bloodlust _downdowndown_.

Riegan found him a few days after that, an annoying smirk on his face and holding a chess king.

“So~,” the Alliance noble placed the king in Sylvain’s palm,-

( _gold star of the east fair skies at night_ for a cheerful arabesque of sandy greens and spicy leaves)

-closing his fingers around it without breaking eye contact. “I heard from a blue House Leader that a certain Prince plays a good game.”

“Oh, I doubt I am anywhere near you, Master Riegan.”

Still, he accepted the given challenge, because the other’s face at the formalities was simply too amusing.

He won one. He also lost two times that day. By the end of the year, Sylvain and Claude and Hubert would play countless times against each other and at times some guests, their scorekeeping book a disaster of wins and losses always favoring Claude. They would become casual friends, or maybe acquaintances in Hubert’s case, meeting each Friday a bell after class to play various games, disassemble strategy and politics, and vaguely insult the continent’s laws; however, that would be later, much, much later.

That first day, it was just the two of them. Two future heads of their respective nations, testing and prodding at each other with casual words and easy smiles, a war shaping between them with each minute that went by. They talked, and laughed, and commiserated with each other for their duties and their futures and their classmates’ ever-watching eyes.

* * *

Lord Lonato of Gaspard was Ashe’s adoptive father and a proud follower of the Church last time Sylvain heard of him, but it was, apparently, not the case anymore. Their Church-assigned mission that month was to deal with a rebellion rising in Gaspard territory, and if people really thought they could do that without conflict of interest getting in the way, then there was clearly a lack of communication within the church.

“Those are my family,” Ashe said, pale and trembling, hands holding his bow so tight it almost snapped in half right there. “They are my people. We can’t just- They aren’t- This must be a mistake.”

That month was tense. Catherine of Charon had returned, and she tended to hover near the training grounds they used. She was to accompany them when it was time for the mission, and so Byleth spoke to her at times, but as a whole, the class didn’t like her all that much. She trained with some of them, mostly Felix and Dimitri, while Byleth and Sylvain analyzed her movements to the side: she was strong and fast, and her Relic was able to deal massive damage at a distance.

(The Crest remained quiet near her, though, or rather anxiously tried to pull him away. Sylvain could take a hint, and he did not spend more time with her than what was strictly necessary.)

In the end, it was all a ploy from the Western Church, part of a larger plot to attack the Central Church and steal _something_ from it. There was a letter, and much distress, and suddenly the Monastery was in high alert for the whole month leading to the Goddess’s Rite of Rebirth.

Shame. The festival was supposed to be fun.

Ashe was devastated, though. His adoptive father had been executed for daring to aim for vengeance, as had many townspeople of Gaspard who saw right in his ways. For weeks, he was a pale gray shadow in the back of the class, and the Blue Lions huddled around him offering their support. It wasn’t subtle, either: anyone could see that the Lions weren’t the most devoted to the Church, even if Byleth dragged them all to choir practice two weekends a month.

They had Mercedes, though.

“I don’t think we should aim our arrows at the Church,” she said, very quietly, one day she and Ashe and Sylvain had been tasked with putting away their supplies. “If there is an enemy out there, we should look behind this schism, at whoever caused it and their reasons.”

“You- You are saying the Western Church is… What, a cover?” Ashe still had felt uncomfortable talking in front of Sylvain back then, still mumbling and stuttering and twiddling his thumbs. Fortunately, he had gotten used to him on the battlefield, and also at the stables, where Sylvain had been tasked with teaching him all about horses. “What could they gain from this, though? They—“

“Time.” Sylvain closed the door behind them, the storehouse’s lights coming to life in a second before their eyes. It was a curious thing, always carefully guarded and warded, protected from light and air, from heat and cold, from dust and dirt too. “They could be stalling while amassing their forces, or watching to see what the Church has in their hands.”

Information is key, after all.

The day before the festival, while grooming Ehri down at the stables, Sylvain-

( _friendfamilysoulmate t h e d e v i l_ the Crest screams, a polyphony of melodies layering over each other along with blue as dark as night and the sweet taste of grapes)

-stumbled. He fell on his knees, suddenly hyper-aware of everything surrounding him: the horses, the walls, the floor a palm’s width away from his face, his horse whining next to him and nibbling at his hair. Loud sounds hammering against his eardrums like giant maces, blood rushing to his head and to his ears and out his nose, and the world fading in and out of focus as it spun around before his eyes- a dizzying whirlwind of sensations he could not take hold of, he could not pull back, and he sank and sank and _sank-_

And then it is quiet again.

“Are… Are you alright?”

The world slowly came back to its usual form with a wash of white light and clean clothes.

The girl kneeling next to him was pretty, cute, and looked as if the smallest breeze would topple her. He knew her only by sight, because she usually hid in the Cathedral or the stables, but he could not say he knew her name. She was shaking, offering Sylvain his brush without looking at him at all, and her eyes looked so _dead_ he felt like he was looking at a painting, or a moving corpse, or maybe even a mirror back home.

( _beastmauricebeast_ )

She was perfect, and he told her as much:

“Better now that you are here.” He smiled, and winked, and quickly retrieved his brush from her frozen hand and helped her stand. She was light enough that getting her to her feet only took one arm. “My thanks, beautiful lady; your voice has healed all my ailments.”

Flirting with and then asking Marianne von Edmund out on a date the minute he met her, right after she healed him and brought him back from sensory overload, had not been a good idea. Not only had he made her panic and hide away in the stables, apparently all day and until Hilda Goneril came to find her, but he had _also_ managed to scare her away from the stables for about a week. A pity, because she probably knew all the lore behind the festival, and she _was_ cute, but if she would rather hide instead of talking to him, then…

There was always next year, until there was no longer _next year_.

* * *

The Holy Mausoleum was… an event.

“ _No._ ” His voice echoed in his head with his own waves of seafoam and red, small arcs of sandy blue cutting through his sight. _No, no, no,_ he was not going in there.

Ingrid looked at Felix looked at Dimitri looked behind Sylvain, and before Sylvain could turn to see what was behind him, he heard a hasty apology and-

( _dark small closed space walls closing in can’t get out dirt so much dirt let us out)_

-woke up in the Mausoleum, armor on and axe beside him, his class and one extra around him. Dedue and Dimitri looked _so_ guilty, it was obvious what happened, while Felix and Ingrid just looked smug. How exactly those two pulled the other two into their ‘make Sylvain be responsible’ schemes, he did not know.

“Now that His Highness is done with his tantrum-,” Ingrid began, but was quickly cut short by the new addition to their group:

“ _This_ is your Prince?” The girl was small, with white hair, pink eyes and a mage’s ensemble. She was cute and seemed like a fun person to talk with, but the moment Sylvain saw her he needed to stop himself from taking some steps away.

( _abomination unnatural_ a _screaming disaster_ of a cacophony of two voices clashing against each other and against the wall once twice once again _break collapse the taste of ash-_ )

“Sylvain, please,” he said. There was a failed attempt of a smile on his lips even as he raised his hand to wave at the girl. “Just Sylvain is fine. And who may the fine lady be…?”

“This is Lysithea,” Byleth said from their place. Their eyes were narrowed in a way Sylvain had learned to read as ‘stop being troublesome’, so he raised both his hands in defense of himself. “She agreed to join us today. You and Felix are guarding her.”

They moved out in groups of threes, with Mercedes standing in the middle of the circle with her healing. They made quick work of the invaders waiting in the lower level of the Mausoleum, and then of their reinforcements until they reached the stairs. There, a huge knight in black armor waited, wielding a scythe and eerily silent and-

(sweet ice cream and pale red spirals and soft hymns sung by death)

-Sylvain grabbed Mercedes and snuck around him as fast as he could.

Byleth, Dimitri and Lysithea faced the Knight and forced him to flee, somehow. It was a terrifying battle to watch, magic and swords and lances flashing at inhuman speeds along with the abyssal black of the scythe. Sylvain was glad they suffered no lasting injuries, even if they wasted some valuable minutes of casket unsealing in healing them above a safe threshold.

The casket did get unsealed in the end, and out came a sword.

A Sword, actually, a Relic: the Sword of the Creator. It was alive, beating like a heart, humming pleasantly when someone reached to grab it —calling, drawing, _tempting_ people to wield it, to give in, to feed it their life and blood and _so much more_ -

And it went to Byleth.

( _mother_ , it wails from inside his heart and the dark of a coffin and below the earth, anguish and ire and melancholy all in one

 _home_ , it cries as it has done for the past thousand years, in one body and the next and the one after, and it goes unheard for months and years and eons whole

 _gone_ , it says from its dreamy depths, and it pulls and pushes and kicks him out-)

Sylvain woke up a few days after the Mausoleum (coffins, the Death Knight, Byleth’s Sword), and something was missing. No, rather, something had changed, _moved_ from its usual location in his range of awareness, and it… was still moving. Not fast, but steadily moving closer, growing louder in his head like a headache that grew stronger the longer it went unattended.

Groaning, he dragged himself to Felix’s room, blindly following the staccato beat of Fraldarius’s march until he could wrap himself around his friend. Everything around him felt out of place, even Felix’s own voice that tasted of bergamot had a lighter flavor right now.

“What’sit?”

“Go to sleep, Fe.”

When morning came, and Dedue almost broke the door looking for him to wake him up, Sylvain stayed in bed. He was not sick, nor did he feel weird, nor did he suddenly want to talk about feelings or skip to go flirt with random people (though it was appreciated, thank you, Dimitri, Ingrid). No, he was just waiting.

And he waited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have any questions? What's up with Sylvain's synesthesia? What's that thing in his head? Why does Miklan not want the throne? Do Sylvix end up together? (No they don't) I know all this, and I will answer.
> 
> I love XIII, it is one of my favorite AUs of mine, mostly because I love playing with roleswaps. This one never got completed, so we didn't get to the ending (where Sylvain either died or left Dimitri on the throne), and we didn't get to see what was happening in Fhirdiad either, so I'm sad. Maybe I'll add scenes to this in the future, for now you get this.

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me about this @ ReunLuet at Twitter. The whole thing is confusing. The person it was written for never said if they had read it or not so I'm posting it so I can get it off my hands and hopefully rewrite it someday.
> 
> Any explanations I have to say? Well, this was originally way longer, and it was also written in rhyme. Why rhyme? Because I'm an idiot. So by taking out the rhyme, some worldbuilding and also whole plot points I never really got to close (like this _whole fic_ ) it ended up sounding really awkward. Do I care? No. Why is prince Sylvie so different from Dimitri? He prefers delegating. What happened to Glenn, what is going on at Fhirdiad and Miklan? Well, wouldn't you like to know? 
> 
> Also, Sylvain died at the end in the first through fifth outlines so shrug. I'm tired. Bye now.


End file.
